Tampa Bay Rays News and Links: What does the future hold for Matt Duffy?

Links

• Jacob Faria and Mallex Smith appeared on the MLB Network during the Monday off day, and they played a game of pictionary.

• Blake Snell takes the mound tonight. He’s been very, very good in the 2nd half:

• Roger Mooney at the Tampa Bay Times ponders what the future holds for Matt Duffy. Many jokes have been made about forgetting Duffy even existed with his 2017 lost completely to injury, and easy to write him off as a lost cause. However, this is still a talented player (when healthy) and could be the type of low-key “faux Free Agent” type of acquisition the Rays are always looking for.
• Bill Chastain has another fan mailbox Q&A, this time with questions on why everybody thinks Cobb is certainly gone after this year, and whether the Rays should “Shun the longball”.
• Jeff Sullivan at Fangraphs asks the very simple question: what if the Twins win the World Series?. Would this be good or bad for baseball? Frankly, with the Rays a dead team walking already, a team like the Twins, packed with fun, young talent, is an easy team to get behind for folks rooting against the Yankees and Red Sox (which is to say, everybody who are not Yankees or Red Sox fans). Personally, I dig the Twins, but I’m going to be pulling hard for Cleveland, because I just can’t resist Francisco Lindor’s smile.
• Our very own Jim Turvey at Beyond the Box Score looks into what happened with the Oakland A’s and their 2nd half offensive breakout.
• Today is Chris Archer’s birthday, so happy birthday Archie!